“Make it steaks, medium rare,” Donna said. “And we’ll be there.”
After we had arrived at the Holiday Inn and wheeled our luggage to the room, I patted the bed beside me. “Sit down, David.”
David crossed the room and stood before me. I tried to make eye contact with him but couldn’t.
“What’s this all about?” David asked, sitting beside me on the bed.
How could I tell him? Why hadn’t I already? I guess it was because my silence was a habit I didn’t know how to break. Besides, I didn’t Stirring Good-Bye know how David would react to the news. I took a deep breath. “Your grandmother, Maria Jewel, and her family are here in L.A.”
“I have family here?” He stood. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The Jewels and I, well, we’ve been estranged, I guess. I … I wasn’t ready to face them.”
He looked down at me. “What made you change your mind?”
“After you found me, I finally called the family, and when I did, I got some bad news.”
He sat back on the bed and reached for my hand. “What’s wrong?”
I looked into his earnest eyes. How could I deliver David such a blow? I took a deep breath before pressing on. “It’s your grandmother, Maria. She’s had a heart attack. The family has asked us to come to the hospital.”
David walked to the window and looked out at the parking lot and the freeway beyond. He turned back, his features awash with worry. “How bad is it?”
I stood up. “I … I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get there. The family is expecting us.”
David was silent as we drove through the evening rush-hour traffic. When we pulled into the hospital parking lot, he helped me with the door, then Donna climbed out of the backseat.
The sun had set, giving way to a horizon of gold gilding an inky blue sky that blotted into darkness. The crescent moon had risen, and scattered stars competed with the glare of the parking lot’s overhead lights.
I took David by the hand. “I haven’t seen Joe’s family in over thirty years. I don’t know how they’ll feel when they see me or how they’ll react when they see you.”
We rode the elevator without speaking. When the door opened in the hall outside the lobby of the ICU, the three of us hesitated. Finally, Donna stepped out and reached for my hand. “Come on, Vonnie.”
David followed like a lost puppy.
When we rounded the corner, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw—a room filled with familiar faces. When they spotted us, a stunned silence interrupted their conversations. A woman who looked remarkably like the Maria I remembered stood up. “Vonnie, is that you?”
I hesitated. “Nina?”
The pause that followed terrified me. I was returning to a world I had betrayed with my absence. I couldn’t expect grace, but I hoped for mercy.
Nina’s eyes filled with tears. “Vonnie! Yes, it’s me.” She held out her arms, and I rushed into her embrace. “It’s been over thirty years. I’m no longer that ten-year-old in braids,” she said.
Donna stepped beside me. Nina turned to stare. “Who’s this? Your daughter?”
Before I could answer, she saw David, and her hand went to her mouth. “Joe! Oh!” Her legs buckled, but David reached to steady her.
“I’m David Harris,” he said. “Joe’s son.”
Nina gasped then buried her face in her hands and leaned into David’s chest. At first, David looked bewildered; then he did what came naturally to him. He wrapped his aunt in his arms and held her while she wept. When she was able to catch her breath, she smiled up at him then turned to the family, including her husband and their three grown children, all older teens and young adults, one holding a sleeping toddler on her lap.
“This is Joe’s son, everybody. David. He’s home at last.”
The crowd of relatives gathered around David, taking turns hugging him, welcoming him to the family. David’s eyes at first registered shock, then filled with a warm pleasure. He seemed starved for the hugs they were desperate to give. I stood back with Donna and tried to take it all in. As I watched the fanfare, I couldn’t help but wonder. What had David Harris’s life been like with his movie star mother?
Nina finally turned to me, wiping her eyes. “Vonnie, I don’t know whether to shake you for running away from us or to kiss you.”
I hung my head. “I know, Nina. It was so unfair to you all.”
Nina turned to stare back at David. “But you know, Vonnie, it’s okay now. Joe’s son is home. And it was you who brought him back to us.”
I nodded. “I would have never known he was alive if he hadn’t come looking for me.”
Nina smiled, and I decided to brave the subject I was dreading. “How’s Maria?” I asked.
“Let’s sit over here away from the commotion,” Nina said, pointing to a bank of gray padded chairs. Donna and I sat beside her.
She leaned toward us. “Mama’s dying. She doesn’t know yet about David, but she’s been asking for you. Are you ready to see her?”
I nodded. Nina stood and took my hand. “Then come with me, Vonnie. It’s time.”
Together, Nina and I pushed through the double doors and into the corridor of the ICU to room four. The name on the door read “Maria Jewel.”
Nina pushed me ahead. “Mama. It’s Vonnie. She’s come to see you.”
I was shocked by what I saw. There before me lay one of the strongest women I’d ever known, now grayed and fragile. She was wired to a heart-rate monitor while one of her skinny, wrinkled arms was connected to an intravenous drip, and a pulse-ox clamp gripped her index finger, measuring her oxygenation, which to tell the truth, wasn’t all that great. I noted that despite her nasal canella hooked to two liters of oxygen, Maria registered at only 40 percent saturation. Not so good.
Maria opened her eyes then beckoned me closer. Her voice was weak. “Vonnie.”
I went to her side. “Maria, yes. It’s me.”
“Vonnie, I’ve been waiting for you. The angels are ready for me, but I knew you would come. I had to wait till you came.”
I leaned over her and pressed my cheek next to hers. “Oh, Maria!” I sobbed. “How I’ve missed you.”
As I pulled back, a lone tear trickled down her cheek. “And I you.”
The talking seemed to tire her, but she continued. “Our world was ripped apart the day Joe died. But I wanted you to come home, I wanted to tell you …”
I stroked her gray curls, not realizing that Nina had slipped out of the room. She continued, “I wanted to tell you that I loved you like a daughter. I wanted to tell you that I go to see Joe and the baby now.”
I swallowed hard. “But the baby …”
“Mama?” Nina stood at the doorway again, this time with David by her side. “Mama, here’s someone I want you to meet.”
Maria’s eyes left my face and fastened on David. “Joe,” she breathed. “Oh, Joe. Are the angels here?”
Nina said, “No, Mama. This isn’t Joe. This is Joe’s son, David.”
Maria blinked. “David? But how?” Her eyes shifted back to mine. “This is my grandson?”
“Yes, Maria,” I said. “I’ve only just met him myself. I never knew until a short time ago that he lived.”
Maria stared at David then lifted her bony hand. “Come here, my son.”
David approached, his eyes locked to hers. She touched his hand, and he leaned toward her.
“David, you look just like your father,” she said, stroking his cheek.
“Yes, ma’am,” David said.
“Call me Abuelita.”
“It means ‘little grandmother,’” Nina supplied.
“Abuelita,” David said, smiling down at his grandmother.
She squeezed his hand. “My Joe was a fine man. To be like my Joe, you cannot only look like him, you have to be good like him.”
“I’ll try, Abuelita.”
Maria placed David’s hand on top of mine. “You have your mother now; she will help y
ou be like your father.”
Her eyes fluttered, and the green pulsating lines on her heart-rate monitor became erratic.
“Mama, you need to rest now,” Nina said.
Maria smiled. “Yes. I can finally rest with God.”
The heart-rate monitor hummed one long note and displayed a long green line across the screen as Maria turned her head toward the empty corner of the room. She cried out, “The angels are here now. Oh, they’ve come with Jesus and my dear husband, and Joe.”
With those final words, Maria Jewel closed her eyes and was reunited with those she had lost so many years ago. The three of us who were left behind could only imagine the reunion.
The poor dear had been holding on for my arrival, I realized as I watched Maria Jewel slip into eternity. At her last words, my heart stirred as it had never stirred before.
Though I think I wouldn’t have broken down so if David had not looked so absolutely shocked. To meet his grandmother and then to lose her, almost within the same breath, had to be overwhelming.
He still hovered over her, holding her hand. “Abuelita?”
The nurse entered the room and turned off the alarms. She smiled sadly. “It’s over,” she told him.
He tried to argue. “That can’t be. I … I’ve only just met her.”
I noticed the Do Not Resuscitate sign attached to Maria’s bed and turned to Nina, managing to ask, “Why the DNR order?”
Nina shook her head as she swatted at a stray tear. “Her last heart attack caused too much irreparable damage. We knew it was only a matter of time. If we brought her back now, it would only be for a few more earthly moments. And forgive me, I wouldn’t want to interrupt the reunion she’s having with the Lord and Papa, not to mention Joe.”
I could only nod.
“She was eighty-two,” Nina continued. “She’d said her good-byes. She was only waiting for you.”
The three of us stood there marveling at the expression of peace on Maria’s face. She looked so beautiful, as if the pain of her death had been overcome by joy. So help me if the tormented face of my own mother didn’t come to my mind. After all the heartache she’d caused by her deception when she gave away my son, it made me wonder. Will Mother enter into a final peace? I’m not sure that’s even possible.
I put my arm around David, and he me. “Maria was a great lady, wasn’t she?” he asked.
I caught my breath. “The greatest.”
Nina patted my arm. “Come, let’s go tell the family.”
Together, we went into the waiting room where the family sat, their faces turned to us for news.
Nina spoke to them. “Mama got to say her good-byes to Vonnie and David. Now she’s gone home. She’s with Papa and Joe.”
The sounds of soft weeping began to fill the room. Donna stood and wrapped me in her arms. That’s when I totally broke down. Donna whispered, “Vonnie, I’m so, so sorry.”
I’m not sure how long we stood like that, but David finally encircled us with his arms and said, “The family is going to Maria’s house now. I’ve got the directions.”
Numbly, I wiped my eyes with a tissue and followed him, holding Donna’s hand as we made our way back to the parking lot.
The chill of evening nipped the breezy air, and I shivered. David opened the car door for me then handed me the sweater I’d left inside.
Donna helped me put it on before she climbed into the backseat. Silently, we got back on the freeway and drove to East L.A.
Donna asked David, “Do you know the way to the house?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve driven those streets many times as a paramedic. Lots of knife and gunshot wounds in that old neighborhood.”
“It wasn’t like that three-plus decades ago,” I said.
“Thirty-five years of gangs changes things,” he replied.
When we pulled up to the house, I was surprised. Though its appearance was still neat and clean, the house was a lot smaller than I remembered. With the street already jammed with cars from Maria’s relatives, we had to park a couple of blocks away. David hopped out to open my door, but I hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
How could I explain all the things that were wrong—starting with my own Fred. If only he were here to go through this with Stirring Good-Bye me, to hold me in his arms. I needed him not to pull away but to pull closer, to hold me tighter.
I sniffed, then looked up at David, his brown eyes glittering in the moonlight. His resemblance to my dead husband almost overpowered me. Swirling with so many complicated emotions, I somehow managed to stammer a reason he could grasp. “It’s been so long, too long. I’m sure the family must hate me by now. I just don’t know if I can face them on this already very difficult night.”
I felt Donna pat my arm from behind. “Vonnie, David and I will be with you. If it gets too weird, we’ll take you back to the hotel.”
David reached for my hand. “We’re in this together,” he said.
Soon we were swept into the warmth of the house. The terracotta walls were painted in sherbet oranges and pineapple yellows. But even with these hues of cheerfulness, the house was darker and smaller than I remembered, though so familiar it made my heart hurt with longing. Nina, or her daughter, had lit the house with soft globes of candlelight that illuminated sudden memories of those happy days I’d waited, heavy with child, for my young husband to return from Vietnam. And the pictures in the hallway. So many of Maria and of Joe, I stopped, entranced. My eyes fastened on one of Joe, all of ten years old, opening a present beneath the Christmas tree while Maria, garbed in a housecoat, clapped her hands with joy; then there was Joe as a little tot, holding hands with Maria, who was a slim, dark-haired beauty. It must have been Easter, judging from the way the pair was dressed. My! Joe had been an adorable child with his big brown eyes and soft black curls. I stole a look at David, suddenly aware of all I had missed with him. I turned back, drawn to a photo of Joe in his uniform. David followed my gaze.
“Oh. That’s a younger version of me,” he said quietly.
I bit my lip and nodded, remembering the wonder of this man who had been my husband so many years ago.
We left the safety of the hallway and faced the family. I blinked against the memories I saw in their faces lined now with age, faces I remembered. The family was polite but distant, though very interested in David. I found myself introducing him and Donna repeatedly as I ate a slice of Nina’s Mexican cake, one of Maria’s heirloom recipes.
“Uncle Alberto, I’d like you to meet Joe’s son, David.”
Uncle Alberto looked up from his place on the couch. “Joe’s son? I thought Joe’s baby died.”
David took Uncle Alberto’s hand. “My death was greatly exaggerated, I’m afraid.”
Uncle Alberto reached for his cane, struggling to stand. He patted David on the back. “Sure looks that way!” The older man pulled his black-rimmed glasses from the pocket of his plaid shirt and put them on. “You look just like Joe, did you know?”
His wife, Reya, wasn’t as kind. She stood up from where she was sitting, livid. Her face pinched with both wrinkles and anger as her voice rose with indignation.
“Joe’s son?”
Aunt Reya looked frail but tough. I figured she had to be pushing eighty herself. “You’re Joe’s wife, Vonnie? You mean you let poor Maria think her grandson was dead all these years? Do you know how his death broke her heart?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. Donna answered for me. “She didn’t know her baby was alive. She’s only just met David herself.”
Aunt Reya put her hands on her hips. “Didn’t know her son was alive?”
Nina rushed to intervene as the family encircled the confrontation. “Aunt Reya, Vonnie was unconscious at the time. She was tricked. We all were. We all thought the baby had died.”
Reya’s eyes were cold. “Tricked? How could that be?” She walked over to the coffee table, where a photo of our wedding sat. She pic
ked it up then waved the photo in my face. Despite her rage, my eyes couldn’t help but fasten on the framed couple so in love. There I was, my golden hair flowing as I held a bouquet of tiger lilies, with Joe in a polyester sky-blue suit, looking at me with so much love. Aunt Reya’s voice jolted me back to the present. “I knew you were trouble as soon as I laid eyes on you. To think how you ripped the Stirring Good-Bye heart out of this family. You betrayed Joe, you betrayed Maria, and you betrayed all of us. Por qué?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, saying it more to the photo of Joe than to Aunt Reya. David jumped in, trying to redirect his aunt’s wrath. “Aunt Reya, are you Abuelita’s sister?”
She whirled back to him, then stopped her tirade, somehow melting under his resemblance to his father. Her tone took on a sudden spirit of graciousness as she pulled him away from me. “Yes, David, I’m your great-aunt.” She gave me a withering look then led him to the sofa. “Come and tell me about yourself.”
David looked back at me, and I tried to smile. “You go on. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
As the relatives turned back to their own conversations, I became aware of Donna hovering by my side. She crossed her arms and leaned toward me. “The nerve. Don’t they realize what you’ve been through? What it took for you to get here?”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “No, they don’t have a clue. But this isn’t your fight, dear. Let it go.”
“But you’re crying.”
I shrugged. “I’m old; I leak a bit,” I said, drying my eyes with my tissue. “Besides, the greatest woman I’ve ever met is gone. I’m allowed to cry.”
Nina gave me a hug. “Vonnie, if my mama forgave you for running away from us, then so do I.”
Nina and I sat together for a while, quietly remembering the woman we loved. When a relative whisked her away, I went out back to get some fresh air. Donna joined me on the patio with a glass of ice water. “Thank you, Donna.”
Donna gave me a consoling hug. “We’ll be leaving soon. I just told David this is all too much for you.”
“Dear, you didn’t need to do that …”
Donna sat down next to me. “I know, but Vonnie, it’s time to say your good-byes.”
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